You are King Oddball, and your mission is to take over the world. How? By throwing boulders at the military with your tongue. The gameplay is similar to that of Angry Birds, except the level size is fixed, and the tongue sways back and forth without your control. This limitation provides some nice challenge in the later levels, of which there are 120. Progress is made by clearing a 4×4 grid of levels to move onto the next grid.

A nice touch is the scoring system. Instead of dealing out a ranking like Angry Birds, you just have to complete the level with the boulders you are given. Extra boulders are awarded when you hit three or more enemies with a single boulder. This reduces level grinding significantly and makes progression more satisfying. Occasionally there are bonus levels that use grenades and other modifiers. It’s addicting and fun like Angry Birds, so no complaints there.

The graphics are very much a flash cartoon, mobile game affair. Don’t expect anything different on the PS4 either. Not to say that it looks bad, but its animation and character design is rather simple, and I don’t particularly like it. King Oddball himself is kind of unique, but it’s an art style all too familiar to me. The backgrounds are rather pretty though.

The music by Jonathan Geer is catchy, but becomes maddening after a while due to the very short loop that plays over the levels. It would’ve been nice to see more than two short ditties, but this being a primarily mobile game I’d imagine a lot of people would mute the sound anyway.

Unfortunately, that’s kind of my lasting impression playing this on the PS4. Am I really playing a mobile game on the PS4? There really seems to be no reason for it. It was already released on the Vita, now you can pay a little extra to play a mobile game on your television? It doesn’t make sense. This game feels like something I shove into my pocket after playing it to waste time until the train comes, not sitting on the couch and playing it on my television.

Conclusion

King Oddball is fun, it really is. I could see myself playing this on my phone, or even my Vita, even though there are much better things to play on Vita. But as far as I can see, there is absolutely no reason to buy this on Ps4, and if this appeals to you, I would recommend buying it on a mobile platform.

6.5

King Oddball (PS4) was reviewed by Stephen Snook on a PlayStation 4

Lazygamer's Australian correspondent reporting!
My name is Stephen Snook and I am 21 years of age. I will be writing for Lazygamer while they poke fun at me for not only being the new guy, but also Australian. Please be kind, I'm awful fragile.
I also play games on the internet: www.youtube.com/user/myth1221 View all posts by Stephen →